Trust is a concept that has attracted significant attention in economic theory and research within the last two decades: it has been applied in a number of contexts and has been investigated both as an explanatory and as a dependent variable. In this paper, we explore the questions of what...

In questions inserted into the 2008 module of the German-Socio Economic Panel we ask subjects to report their income relative to different reference groups, such as fellow employees, other people in their profession, same age and same gender groups, friends, and neighbours. In addition subjects...

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP), this paper assesses the relationship between life satisfaction and religious practice. The main new result here is longitudinal. It is shown that individuals who become more religious over time record long term gains in life...

Social comparisons are an essential source of information about the self. Research in social psychology has shown individual variation in the tendency toward comparison with other people's opinions and abilities, raising the question of whether social comparisons are driven by psychological...

The paper gives an overview of two experiments implemented in the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) considering the effect of monetary incentives on cross-sectional and longitudinal response propensities. We conclude that the overall effects of monetary incentives on response rates are positive...

Despite numerous studies on skill development, we know little about the causal effects of music training on cognitive and non-cognitive skills. This study examines how long-term music training during childhood and youth affects the development of cognitive skills, school grades, personality,...